—Needham, MA-based Celldex Therapeutics announced that Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) had terminated a agreement in which it licensed Celldex’s experimental cancer vaccine rindopepimut, because it no longer views the drug as a strategic priority. Celldex (NASDAQ: CLDX) will regain full rights to develop and commercialize the drug, effective November 1.

—Cambridge, MA-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: VRTX), on the other hand, had good news about its own hepatitis C drug candidate, telaprevir. A combination of telaprevir and standard hepatitis drugs was able to cure two-thirds of patients who had failed to respond to a prior round of the standard drugs alone, in a trial involving more than 660 volunteers. Based on that study and two others, Vertex plans to file an application for FDA approval of the drug by year’s end.

—Anchor Therapeutics, also of Cambridge, MA, forged a partnership with the Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals division of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) that could be worth up to $480 million. The deal involves several drug targets in the fields of cancer and metabolic disease, and centers around Anchor’s “pepducin” drug technology, which the startup says offers a new way to hit a lucrative class of drug targets called G protein coupled receptors.

—Following a merger last year with Vancouver-based Neuromed Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, MA-based drug developer CombinatoRx announced it has changed its name to Zalicus. The company, which won its first drug approval earlier this year for the pain treatment hydromorphone HCL (Exalgo), now trades on the Nasdaq under the symbol ZLCS.